Felting needle

ABSTRACT

A felting needle having a body portion having a fiber receiving recess therein, and a spur in the body portion above the recess having a downwardly protruding ridged fiber engaging surface at its lower end comprising bi-lateral bottom surfaces converging toward each other at an obtuse angle from opposite sides of the body portion.

nited States Patent [1 1 Foster [4 1 Oct. 29, 1974 r FELTING NEEDLE [76] Inventor: Edson P. Foster, PO. Box 527, 409 S. 29th St., Manitowoc, Wis. 54220 [22] Filed: Sept. 20, 1973 [21] Appl. No.: 398,978

[52] US. Cl 28/4 N [51] Int. Cl D04h 18/00 [58] Field of Search 28/4 N [56] References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 3,307,238 3/1967 Foster 28/4 N 3,566,663 3/1971 Zocher 28/4 N 3,762,004 10/1973 Shepard et al.....' 28/4 N Primary ExaminerLouis K. Rimrodt Attorney, Agent, or Firm-Johnson, Dienner, Emrich,

Verbeck & Wagner [57] ABSTRACT A felting needle having a body portion having a fiber receiving recess therein, and a spur in the body portion above the recess having a downwardly protruding ridged fiber engaging surface at its lower end comprising bi-lateral bottom surfaces converging toward each other at an obtuse angle from opposite sides of the body portion.

6 Claims, 6 Drawing Figures FELTING NEEDLE BACKGROUND or THE INVENTION It is well known in the art to strike a felting needle barb or spur with a 180 straight faced chisel like tool. It is also well known that this tool will mushroom and laterally spread out the stock of the needle body portion into which the spur is being formed, so that after impact the fiber engaging surface of the spur has sharp flashings around the lateral edges which are damaging to the batt fibers and have a configuration which bears little resemblance to the body contour into which the spur is formed. This causesthe initial punching characteristics of the barb to be very different from the results after a period of needling when the thin mushroomed flashings of the fiber engaging surface have been worn away.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION Thepresent invention has to do with that type of felting needle barb construction where only the fiber engaging surface at the lower end of the barb is formed by the barbing tool and the side wall configuration defining the lateral extent of the barb is derived from the needle body contour into which the barbs are struck. The present invention further concerns an improved felting needle having a spur above a fiber receiving recess in the body portion of the needle in which the face of the spur has a downwardly protruding ridged surface at its lower end comprising bi-lateral bottom surfaces converging toward each other at an obtuse angle from opposite sides of the body portion.

OBJECT OF THE INVENTION It is the object of this invention to eliminate the mushroomed fiber engaging surface flashings and provide a barb having the uniform lateral configuration of the body contour into which it is formed and at the same time eliminate the fiber damage due to sharp lateral spur edges. It is a further object of this invention to provide a barb having an obtuse angled fiber engaging surface of a downwardly protruding ridged conformation over which batt fibers can easily be drawn lengthwise and over which they will flow with a minimum of resistance. This is all achieved by providing a barb or spur forming tool having an obtuse angled fiber engaging surface forming cavity which will contain and control the lateral flow of material in the needle body during the barb forming impact.

DESCRIPTION OF TFIE DRAWINGS FIG. 1 is an elevational view of a felting needle of my invention fabricated as described hereinbelow;

FIG. 2 is a greatly enlarged side elevational view of a portion of the body portion of the needle of FIG. 1 with a barbing tool applied to one of the triangular outer edges of the body portion;

FIG. 3 is a plan view of the same portion of the body portion of the needle shown in FIG. 2;

FIG. 4 is a transverse cross-sectional view taken along the lines 4-4 of FIG. 1 looking in the direction indicated by the arrows but with the barbing tool removed;

FIG. 5 is a cross-sectional view taken along the line 55 of FIG. 2 looking in the direction indicated by the arrows and illustrating an obtuse angular recess for the barbing tool to form a spur in the body portion of the needle; and 1 FIG. 6 is a cross-sectional view taken along the lines of FIG. 5 but illustrating a barbing tool having an obtuse angular recess for forming a spur in the body portion of the felting needle different than that of FIG. 5.

DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION Referring now to FIGTl of the drawing I have shown a felting needle 10 constructed in accord with principles of my invention which comprises a body portion indicated generally at 12 and a shank portion indicated generally at 14. The lower end of the body portion 12 is pointed as at 16 to facilitate penetration of the fibrous material to be compacted in a conventional manner.

The upper end of the needle may be bent substantially at right angles to the shank 14 to provide a securing element or ear 18 for clamping between a base member and a clamping member of a conventional needle plate. As is well known in the art, such a needle plate is adapted to support a plurality of felting needles of the type shown in FIG. 1, which in reciprocation of the plate in the felting machine affects the interlacing and compacting of loose fibrous material.

The felting needles of my present invention may be made of any ordinary or conventional needle stock having the necessary mechanical strength as, for exam,- ple, steel wire. In making up the needle for my present invention, preferably originally round steel wire stock is used in which a suitable length is cut to form a needle with the portion thereof that is to become the body of the needle, preferably be of swaged in accordance with conventional practice to form a triangular cross section, as shown, having lengthwise extending edges 20 at the intersections of adjacent side surfaces of the body portion of the needle.

A portion of the material of body portion 12 of the needle along one of its edges is displaced to form a recess as indicated at 23 and a spur 24 above the recess. The recess 23 and spur 24 are formed by barbing tool 26 which is centered on the edge 20 in which the recess and spur are to be formed. The barbing tool 26 at its forward or leading edge is formed with an angular recess 30 which in one preferred form as shown in FIG. 5 comprises walls 32-32 which converge toward each other from the side walls 34 of the barbing tool. In the form of the invention as shown in FIG. 5, the converging walls 3232 define an obtuse angle of 150. Thus upon applying the barbing tool 26 to the corner edge 20 of the felting needle the spur 24 is formed with a ma terial engaging surface above the recess 23 having downwardly protruding materials engaging surface at its lower end defined by bi-lateral bottom surfaces 35-35 converging toward each other at an obtuse angle (namely, 150, from opposite sides of the body portion) with the spur having uniform side walls 36 conforming to the configuration of the body portion of the needle at which the spur 24 is formed. The angular recess 30 is of substantially greater width than the corner edge of the needle and due to the obtuse angle of the spur forming recess the material displaced to form the spur The bottom wall of recess 23 is defined by two distinct contiguous surfaces 42 and 44 which are of a construction disclosed in my U.S. Pat. No. 3,641,636 and as described in that patent centers their formation of the spur along the center line of the needle blade. The present invention is not dependent upon the configuration or shape of the recess but lies in the formation of the spur 24 having a downwardly protruding fiber engaging surface as defined by the bi-lateral bottom surfaces 35-35 converging toward each other at an obtuse angle from opposite sides of the body portion, and at which said sides of the spur conform to the configuration of the body portion of the needle at which the spur is formed.

As best seen in H0. 4 the bi-lateral bottom surfaces 35-35 converge toward each other and define a lengthwise extending ridge 36 centrally of the corner edge in which the spur is formed.

In FIG. 6 the barbing tool is shown in which the recessed surfaces 32 and 32' again define an obtuse angle and in this instance noted the angle is 120.

The crux of the invention resides in the spur 24 having the bi-lateral bottom surfaces 35-35 as aforenoted which converge toward each other at an obtuse angle from oppositesides of the body portion. The selection of the obtuse angle between the barb forming surfaces is somewhat dependent upon purposes for which the needles are to be employed. For example, in a needle having the obtuse angle of 120 as shown in FIG. 6, the fiber engaging surfaces will tend to be more efficient than one disposed at an angle of 150. However, the 150 fiber engaging surfaces will not needle as tight a felt as an 120 obtuse angle relationship. These two angled relationships represent the'preferred embodiments of the invention but it is to be understood that other angles in an obtuse angle range are part of my present invention.

The invention claimed is:

1. A felting needle comprising a body portion having a fiber receiving recess therein, and a spur in said body portion above said recess having a downwardly protruding material engaging surface at its lower end comprising bi-lateral bottom surfaces converging toward each other at an obtuse angle from opposite sides of the body portion.

2. A felting needle comprising a body portion having a fiber receiving recess therein, and a spur in said body portion above said recess having a downwardly protruding material engaging surface at its lower end comprising a ridged bottom surface having sloping bottom surfaces converging toward each other at an obtuse angle from opposite sides of the body portion.

3. The felting needle of claim 1 wherein the bi-lateral bottom surfaces are rounded at their ridge of convergence.

4. The felting needle of claim 2 wherein the sloping bottom surfaces are rounded at their ridge of convergence.

5. The felting needle of claim 1 wherein the lateral extend of the bi-lateral bottom surfaces configuration is defined by the needle body contour into which the barb is struck.

6. The felting needle of claim 2 wherein the lateral extent of the sloping bottom surfaces configuration is defined by the needle body contour into which the barb is struck. 

1. A felting needle comprising a body portion having a fiber receiving recess therein, and a spur in said body portion above said recess having a downwardly protruding material engaging surface at its lower end comprising bi-lateral bottom surfaces converging toward each other at an obtuse angle from opposite sides of the body portion.
 2. A felting needle comprising a body portion having a fiber receiving recess therein, and a spur in said body portion above said recess having a downwardly protruding material engaging surface at its lower end comprising a ridged bottom surface having sloping bottom surfaces converging toward each other at an obtuse angle from opposite sides of the body portion.
 3. The felting needle of claim 1 wherein the bi-lateral bottom surfaces are rounded at their ridge of convergence.
 4. The felting needle of claim 2 wherein the sloping bottom surfaces are rounded at their ridge of convergence.
 5. The felting needle of claim 1 wherein the lateral extend of the bi-lateral bottom surfaces configuration is defined by the needle body contour into which the barb is struck.
 6. The felting needle of claim 2 wherein the lateral extent of the sloping bottom surfaces configuration is defined by the needle body contour into which the barb is struck. 